“We need to get them to the trauma center,” she said. She was wondering exactly how they were going to do that when she heard the sweet call of a siren somewhere on the other side of the wind.

“Thank God,” she said out loud.

“I hear a siren!” Andy’s neighbor said. He was sitting near the boy, looking dazed and helpless.

Within a minute, the ambulance pulled into the driveway. It was staffed by only one paramedic—Mike—and an EMT, who was driving. But it didn’t take long before they had the woman intubated and the boy bandaged, and both of them, placed in the ambulance.

“Rory and I will go with them in the rig,” Daria said to Andy.

“You take Shelly back to the Sea Shanty, please.”

“No,” Shelly said.

“I’m staying with Andy.”

Daria turned to Andy.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“There’s no time to talk about it now,” Andy said. He was pushing her toward the ambulance, but Daria held her ground.

“Tell me,” she said. “Shelly and I have been together for a couple of years,” Andy said.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. She was afraid you’d try to break us up if you knew. Okay? Now get in the ambulance.”

Daria backed away from Andy, stunned.

“Daria?” Mike called from inside the rig.

“Let’s go!”

With one more glance at her sister, she turned and ran toward the ambulance.

JUaria walked out of the treatment room in the nearly empty trauma center. Rory, who had been waiting on one of the chairs in the hallway, stood when he saw her.

“They’re going to be all right,” Daria said, walking toward him.

“Both of them?” Rory asked.

Daria nodded. The woman had not looked good in the ambulance, but after two hours in the treatment room she was breathing on her own and alert enough to ask about her son.

“Thank God,” Rory said, and he drew her into a hug. Daria closed her eyes, resting her cheek against his shoulder for a moment before pulling away.

“You’re soaking wet.” She brushed her hand over the damp front of his shirt.

“How can you tell?” he asked.

“So are you.”

Her wet clothes clung to her body, but she had not given them a thought until this moment. Suddenly, she felt cold.

“There’s nothing more we can do here,” she said.

“Woody—the EMT—said he can give us a ride home.”

She sat in the passenger seat of Woody’s car, barely noticing how the wind pushed them around on the deserted roads. Shingles and twigs flew against the car’s windows, and she didn’t even blink when they hit the glass in front of her face. Woody and Rory were talking, about the storm or the trauma center; Daria didn’t know or care. She felt shaky and strange. She still hadn’t absorbed all that Chloe had told them earlier that evening—that conversation seemed like a bad dream from weeks ago. And then there was the revelation about Shelly and Andy. She did not truly know either of her sisters.

Woody let them out in front of the Sea Shanty. At least two of the porch screens were torn, flapping wildly in the wind like a trapped bird.

Rory leaned close to her ear.

“I should check on Poll-Rory while I’m out here,” he said.

Daria stared at the front door of the dark Sea Shanty, not wanting to go inside, not ready to explain the past few hours to Chloe, if she happened to be up.

“I’ll go with you,” she said, shouting above the wind.

Rory nodded. He put his arm around her and they plowed their way across the cul-de-sac.

Inside Poll-Rory, the darkness was disorienting, and the wind groaned and whistled. Daria stood in the living room, feeling lost and cold.

The storm had brought frigid air with it, and she shivered in her wet clothes. Her sore finger throbbed. Rory tried the switch for the overhead light, but the power was, of course, still out.

He shined his flashlight toward a cupboard at the rear of the room.

“I

have a lantern in that closet,” he said.

“And matches in the drawer in the kitchen. Why don’t you take care of that, and I’ll find us some dry clothes to change into.”

He disappeared into one of the bedrooms, and, by the weak, yellow beam of her own flashlight, Daria found the lantern, checked the oil and lit the wick. In a moment, Rory reappeared. He handed her a bundle of soft fabric and pointed toward another bedroom.

“Why don’t you change in there. There are towels in the bathroom.”

The wet clothes stuck to her body like a thin layer of cold plaster.

She peeled them off, underwear and all, and hung them over the shower rod in the bathroom. Rory had given her one of his sweatshirts, either navy blue or black, she couldn’t tell which in the fading glow from her flashlight, along with gray sweatpants that were way too large for her. She put the clothes on over her bare skin, tried unsuccessfully to run her fingers through her wet hair and walked into the living room.

Rory, too, was in sweatpants and sweatshirt, standing in the middle of the room, holding the lantern. He smiled at her.

“Feel better?” he asked.

“Physically,” she said, sitting down on the sofa.

“But I’m… still pretty shaken up by everything that happened tonight.”

“How about something to drink?” he asked.

“Power’s out, so I can’t make anything hot. There’s iced tea. Wine. Beer.”

“Wine.” She rested her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes while he carried the lantern into the kitchen. A moment later, he handed her a glass of wine, and she took several sips from it before placing it on the coffee table.

Setting the hurricane lantern next to her glass, Rory sat down near Daria on the sofa. He looked toward the boarded windows, which rattled in the wind.

“I have a feeling there’s still more to come,” he said.

“I wonder what part of the storm is over us now?”

“We’ve been spared, so far,” Daria said.

“Let’s hope it continues that way. Iwish Shelly weren’t right there on the sound, though.” She looked at Rory.

“Why have my sisters kept their lives secret from me?” she asked, hoping Rory didn’t hear the catch in her voice.

“I

thought I knew both of them so well. I thought I knew everything about them, that they loved me and trusted me and knew I’d be there for them, no matter what. I failed them somehow. And I feel. betrayed and hurt and just plain confused. “

Rory rested his arm across the back of the sofa and touched her shoulder with his fingertips.

“Well, Chloe could hardly tell anyone what was going on with her and Sean Macy,” he said.

“And Shelly…” He looked away from her, toward the dark ceiling, as if this was difficult for him to say.

“I remember you telling me that you were pleased she wasn’t involved with anyone. And you told me you put an end to a couple of relationships she’d had. So, I don’t think it’s surprising that she would keep this relationship from you.”

Daria lowered her head. She wasn’t certain what she would have done had she known about Shelly and Andy. While she didn’t think she would have tried to end their relationship, she no doubt would have intervened to make sure that Andy treated her sister well.

“I thought Shelly was content with her life,” she said.

“I thought she wanted nothing more than long walks on the beach and stringing shells for her necklaces.” How could she have wanted so little for her sister?

“I

thought I was giving her everything she needed. I didn’t know she needed more than what I could provide. I bet she was actually seeing Andy some of those times she told me she was out walking. “

“Well,” Rory said, “from the little I saw of them together tonight, it seems that Andy is taking good care of her.”

Images from the pier suddenly flashed into her mind:

the little boy reaching for her hand from beneath the boat;

the woman’s face as the water threatened to pull her under.

“I’m glad you went with me tonight,” she said.

“That mother and son wouldn’t have survived without your help. I think, somehow, we were meant not to evacuate. If we had, they would be dead.”

“Whew,” Rory said with a shudder.

“I hadn’t thought of that.” His fingers touched her shoulder again, lingering there a moment, and she wanted to move closer to him to receive more.

“I thought you were incredible,” he said.

“I know you must have been afraid, since you haven’t worked as an EMT for a while, but you sure didn’t let it show. I couldn’t believe the way you just dived under that boat to get the little boy. You weren’t even thinking about yourself. was more afraid for you than you were for yourself, I think. Then when the water washed over the woman…” He shook his head.p>

“I thought it was going to drag all of us out into the sound.”

Daria smoothed a tear away from her cheek with her fingertips, and Rory must have known she was crying, because he moved closer, putting his arm around her shoulders.

“Did it remind you of… Grace’s daughter?” he asked.

“Seeing the woman go underwater like that, when she was trapped by the boat?”

It touched her deeply that he was thinking of that, that he understood so well. Lowering her face to her hands, she let the tears come.

Rory stroked her hair, letting her cry for a minute, then pulled her into his arms. She felt his warmth and strength, the seductive comfort of his embrace. They were quiet for a moment and, as her tears abated, she became aware of the pressure of his arm against the side of her breast, bare beneath the sweatshirt. The sensation was delicious and provocative, and before she had time to think, she lifted her head from his shoulder and found his mouth with her lips. She felt his surprise; for a second, his body stiffened. Then he reached between their faces with his fingers, drawing back from her to look into her eyes, to touch her lips. In a moment, he was kissing her again, this time with a fever she had not expected. Impulsively, she straddled him, catching her breath when she felt his erection, already hard, already teasing her, from beneath the layers of soft fabric that separated them. His hands stroked her back through the sweatshirt, and she was the one to pull the shirt over her head and drop it to the floor. But he needed no more invitation than that to take over—to lay her down on the sofa, finish undressing her, cover her body with heated kisses. He slipped inside her and rocked with her in the lantern-lit darkness, until her body burned and the howling of the wind was forgotten.

She lay next to him, naked, afterward, and he reached over her to lift pieces of their clothing from the floor and lay them across their bodies, rubbing her arms and back through the fabric to warm her.

Brimming with love for him, she turned her head to press her lips against the warm, quick pulse in his neck.

“Do you realize how long we’ve known each other?” Rory asked.

“I think I’ve known you longer than anyone else, outside my family.”

Daria smiled. “Who would have guessed back when we were kids, pulling crabs out of the bay, that we’d be lying here like this right now?” she said.

“I admired you back then, just like I admire you now. You were so strong and self-confident. I always felt as though I was in competition with you, even though you were younger than me. You were the best at everything. You caught more crabs, you could cast your fishing line the farthest, you could wallop anybody at volleyball and build the highest sand castle on the beach. You were something else.”

He gave her a squeeze.

“You still are.”

She felt his lips press against her temple.

“I had an agonizing crush on you back then,” she said.

Rory laughed. “You did?” he asked. “I had no idea. 7 had a crush on Chloe.”

“Chloe?” Daria repeated in astonishment.

“She was so much older than you.”

“Yeah, well, I had big dreams,” Rory said.

“And now she’s a nun.”

Daria laughed.

“I have to admit, she was never really my type,” he said.

“She was just such a… knockout. It was the yearning of an adolescent male for the best-looking girl on the beach.”

Daria was quiet, thinking that some things never changed. Rory was still attracted to the best-looking girl on the beach: Grace. But she didn’t want to think about Grace just then. Surely what Rory now knew about Grace, not to mention what had just passed between him and Daria, had changed his feelings.

Rory suddenly squeezed her tight, letting out a long sigh.

“I hope what we just did wasn’t a mistake,” he said.

The comfortable warmth she’d been feeling turned suddenly to ice. What did he mean? It was anything but a mistake to her.